Another good example was DaVinci, the ass he gave god in the Sistine chapel in itself is a damn good argument for him being gay and a troll along with his journals (though a theology major once argued with me it’d be blasphemy to give an artistic rendition of god anything but the best ass possible).
Sistine chapel was Michelangelo. The one with the nunchucks.
Oops, I’ll leave it since that’s funnier
Sistine chapel was Michelangelo.
A sculptor who hated painting btw. Was basically kidnapped and forced to do it. Got paint in his eyes and almost went blind. Also probably closeted gay.
the saltine chapel
(though a theology major once argued with me it’d be blasphemy to give an artistic rendition of god anything but the best ass possible).
That makes sense tbh. Also makes sense to get a gay guy to paint God for that exact reason.
Yea that’s what we ended up agreeing on, that and a lot of the Renaissance arts probably saw love and divinity as the same thing. To have a poor art history major in that room lol.
(though a theology major once argued with me it’d be blasphemy to give an artistic rendition of god anything but the best ass possible).
I’m sorry, this is the religion whose followers are commonly seen being homophobic?
Ikr, his argument was ‘oh it wasn’t as severe in those days’ (total horseshit) also something about pre-modern man seeing the world-universe as perfect, not just sacred, and by extension the human form. Idk about that neither, in those days pretty much just existing and being born was a sin, there’s a gap between whatever he was arguing and real world shaping things imo. Whatever, too much religious exhilaration in an academic setting poisoned him.
He’s like…sorta kinda right about the human form stuf, man being made in the image of God means that God would be the hottest man is the quick version, but a theology major is pretty likely to have a pretty eack view of history, cause that does play into things but is far from an exclusive factor. It’s not like…totally wrong but is so reductive that it’s worse than just being wrong cause it requires a long multidisciplinary explanation that I’m too about to make supper for to deal with
By and large, Alexander was bi and large
Me
Alexander
Whatever
Were the Greek the type to think anal sex with another man was okay as long as you weren’t the bottom?
No it was the Vikings who did that weird shit
Greek dudes were just gay
Egh, the Romans did it…
turks beeing greeks confirmed …
My understanding is that that’s pop history and that the ancient Greeks were very, extremely, violently homophobic. MLM sex was about the worst thing you could do and if you got caught you’d be publicly shamed for the rest of your life if not outright killed.
This post calling Alexander the Great gay is questionable too but eh.
It varied hugely by city-state, but most were at least pretty OK with pederasty. A young boy having a sexual relationship with an adult man was seen as a pretty normal part of most educational/mentorship relationships. In the city-states where it was more frowned on, it was the “receiver” role that tended to be stigmatized, rather than the relationship as a whole. Hence all the references to eunuchs here: since they didn’t have to worry about being emasculated, it tended to be a lot more acceptable. Adult men who preferred to bottom were definitely stigmatized in a lot of places, though.
Correct me if I’m wrong but pederasty wasn’t supposed to be sexual. It was a mentorship-like relationship between an educated man and a young boy where the man taught the boy like a son. Sex in this relationship was condemned as much as modern pedophile teachers would be.
Also, saying that ancient Greeks were gay because some men molested their students is… not the argument people think it is.
Correct me if I’m wrong but pederasty wasn’t supposed to be sexual
You’re wrong, sex in the relationship was absolutely not condemned, it was very typical and expected. It is very well attested and this isn’t a controversial or conjectured position.
I agree that ancient Greece is not a good example of a society with chill views on sexuality, but there’s no reason to deny reality.
We also have examples of adult to adult homosexuality like the sacred band of Thebes, where it wasn’t just accepted but required. So it was a mixed bag.
Probably need more reading on this, pederasty feels like it would have been pretty common
It’s agony trying to find sources that are specific and contemporary. Aristotle mentioned pederasty in the Nicomachean Ethics saying that it’s a morbid state of character that arises from men who are either naturally brutish or who were abused as children.
…and others are morbid states © resulting from custom, e.g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or even coals or earth, and in addition to these paederasty; for these arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been the victims of lust from childhood, from habit.
What about the greeks virulently hating homosexuality?
hordes of eunuchs practiced in playing the women’s part
hordes, you say
mmmm, love me sexual violence when it’s femboy coded.
History is gay AF. That’s why they only teach the marketed versions in school. Even the bible… Pretty sure Lucifer and God just had a sloppy breakup.
If I can’t have you no one can! Leviticus write this down!!
Cast out because he saw God wasn’t doing what God itself was preaching.
Pretty sure angels and demons were originally other mesopotanian gods and demigods before it went monotheistic.
Satan isn’t real, biblically
??? There’s certainly a Satan-like figure (Ha-Satan) in the Bible, specifically in the Books of Job and Zechariah. Many Jews interpret that figure as a metaphor, like the “idea” of evil, not a fallen angel type dude, but Satan is definitely real and in the Bible.
Yeah, though even then the idea of a singular figure in opposition to God is not present at all in the Talmud. And the earlier Hebrew books of the Bible have no supernatural satans, which is translated as “adversary”
Wasn’t there a “Satan” or “Accuser” figure in the story of Job? Not in opposition to God, but tasked by God with testing man’s faith or something? I going off half-remembered stuff I read years ago
I’m not too savvy with religious shit. What do you mean and do you have a source to link to?
I’d take a look at @Vncredleader@hexbear.net’s reply to my comment
🐿️🏳️🌈
shaun gtfo bsky wtf r u doin
Whats wrong with bsky?
The same things that are wrong with every other corporate social media platform.
Who is the guy in the middle?
Did people really not know Alexander the Great was bisexual or gay in some way? I remember it because I watched some terrible movie about him nearly 20 years ago as a kid. The one with Collin Farrell and Angelina Jolie in it.
They never mentioned it to me in school, and I didn’t know. But tbh I’m very fuzzy on that part of history… I remember studying the decline of Rome, and I remember studying Mesopotamia. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.
To be honest I found out about it from this terrible movie well before I even learnt about ancient Greece in school. Made for some interesting questions to my history teacher years later lol.
They made two Alexander the Great movies with Collin Farrell and Anjelina Jolie??
According to Wikipedia there are four versions of the film lmao
Four versions of the film exist, the initial theatrical cut and three home video director’s cuts: the “Director’s Cut” in 2005, the “Final Cut” in 2007, and the “Ultimate Cut” in 2014.
I’ll wait for the Final Ultimate Director’s Cut before I check it out
Haven’t read it in twenty years but The Persian Boy is about this and was pretty good.
Eunuch essentially means trans woman or enby fyi, unless forcefully made one by someone else. The cult of Cybele was very prevalent in Greece and they referred to themselves with female pronouns, many similar cases in the Levant and Persia. So let’s not assume that it’s gay, but it definitely was a queer situation
Very few people (some asexuals for example) would willingly become a eunuch outside of being trans or as a punishment.
Didn’t Alexander share a tent with his best friend Hephaestion though? With descriptions of them reading letters together, kissing a ring to the others lips to keep a secret, and Alexander “yielding to Hephaestion’s thighs”. And after Hephaestion died, Alexander showed immense grief.
That sounds very gay to me. Or bisexual and polygamous considering they also had wives. To be honest applying modern conceptions of sexuality to ancient Greek rulers probably doesn’t work too well.
Didn’t Alexander share a tent with his best friend Hephaestion though?
Yes and Hephaestion had died less than a year before and his body had to be physical pried away from Alexander because he wouldn’t leave it for the entire day. He wept and didn’t eat for three days after and had the doctor looking after Hephaestion hanged. He declared an empire wide period of mourning. They also both married daughters of Darius and Alexander hoped that a child who was related to the both of them would one day rule. You know … normal heterosexual things.
Hephaestion’s wikipedia page is where they put all the gay stuff since I guess it’s too offensive to have in Alexander’s.
of course, im not saying alexander wasnt gay or bi, but that eunuchs were often trans
Oh cool, thanks for the interesting information, I didn’t know that. Though it makes sense when you explain it.
It’s interesting how you never really learn about these things in history class. I remember surprising my history teacher with some interesting questions. It should be taught, LGBT history. Trans history especially, given all the nonsense right wing propaganda out there about how “being transgender is a modern phenomenon”.
With descriptions of them reading letters together
Fellas, is it gay to read correspondence with another bro?
Jokes aside, I think we should be careful applying the sexual and cultural standards of modern western culture across borders and time. For example, it’s still very common in the middle east for men who are friends to hold hands while walking down the street. To us that’s a sign of homosexuality, to them it’s just bros being bros.
That all being said, taking a stance that any ancient Greek figure was straight as we know it is hilarious.
I know from the courses I took that in the Byzantine world, becoming a eunuch could be an avenue to familial advancement, if you could get employment in the imperial palace bureaucracy in Constantinople. Some eunuchs even became powerful enough that they made their brothers emperor, like with Michael IV.
yes, i actually know a trans lady that is wanting to write a book about trans history through a marxist lens, and a lot of societies were like this before industrialization and the spread of mercantilism. ive been helping her get into contact with people so she can touch on every region of the world, im mostly parroting what she has told to me. eunuchs (re: usually trans people) held an immense amount of power due to ‘checking out’ of inheritance, which was necessary for primitive accumulation and allowed bureaucracies and impartial judges to appear. to the point that eunuchs were THE people to please, and were given all sorts of things for free, like primitive hrt, food, money, surgeries, leniency for homosexuality in some homophobic societies, ability to create laws and solve marital and inheritance disputes, and so on
Thought it was a male who was castrated before puberty?
so thats a later thing in the catholic church, but you can also find people that referred to themselves as women or a ‘third gender’ in that context. some however were also forced because the catholic church is problematic. in this catholic idea, eunuchs are sexless and do not have sex, but this was obviously not the case in so many instances.
eunuchs also had various roles in different cultures. there was a jewish king for example that had a eunuch in his harem was implied to be treated as a woman as a result (re: fucked like a woman). theres also some theories that Puyi was in love with his ‘eunuch’, and they lived together after the revolution in China (was told this by chinese friends)
Interesting, I didn’t know the term had such a wide definition. I remembered it in the context of the Ottoman sultans, who used eunuchs to guard their harems.
The wider definition is becoming more common with recent scholarship, a lot of historians ommitted source materials on eunuchs demanding to be referred as women or otherwise, and some of this source material is even first person due to many eunuchs being clergy and literate
There’s a lot of work being done on the restudy of history without chauvinism these days
The big thing with being a eunuch is that the idea was that because you gave up having direct descendents, it meant that you could more easily be trusted to run bureaucratic tasks for the good of the royal line. Whether or not this works is one of those oft-debated ancient and medieval political science topics of the time (particularly in China) with most petty lords that would lead revolts against kings/emperors blaming the bad government on the influence of eunuchs. If this was true or not is unknown, but the ones that won were the victors so their histories survive.
As far as I am aware though, you are correct that the only culture that believed eunuchs to be ‘sexless’ is the Catholic Church.
I knew he was bi but, did not really hear about this relationship he had. It’s interesting to hear about it.
